A Message to the Glad and the Sad

A Message to the Glad and the Sad

(No. 2546)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 5, 1897,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 17, 1884.

"When men are cast down, then you shall say, there is lifting up; and
He shall save the humble person." Job 22:29.

THIS is Eliphaz, the Temanite, who is speaking, and he is telling Job
what he thinks would be the condition of a man who had been sincere. He
says that surely, God's Presence would be with him, the light would
shine upon his ways and then, when he was, himself, happy in the Light
of God, when other men were cast down, he would be able to say to them,
"there is lifting up." Keeping that thought in mind, I will commence my
discourse, this evening, by observing that if any of us have the Light
of God, it is not given to us for ourselves alone. There is nothing
selfish in the gifts of God. The Jews were elected to receive the
Oracles of God, but it was in order that they might keep them for the
rest of us, that in the midst of Israel the lamp of the Truth of God
might be trimmed and kept burning for the nations that then waited in
darkness.

When God calls any man by His Grace, it is with a view to others. Your
salvation has many hooks to it with which to draw on the salvation of
many more. If a man is truly converted, the influence of his conversion
will spread to others–it is an act of mercy from God to him with a
view also to his children, his friends, his neighbors, his dependents.
It is the same with the Light in the Believer's heart. When you are
very merry, shut not up your mirth within your own soul, but sing
Psalms that others may hear your gladness. When God makes you a feast,
eat not your morsel, alone, but call in many of the poor, the lame, the
halt and the blind, that they may feast with you, for there are many
such in God's family and they will be glad to come to spiritual as well
as to temporal feasts. If your face is made to shine in the Light of
God, it is not that you may see it, for Moses "knew not that the skin
of his face shone," but it is that others may see what a Light God has
put in your countenance and may rejoice in that Light.

I fear that many Christian people have lost their comfort through
trying to keep it to themselves. The manna was sweet and they had
gathered more than they could eat. They went, therefore, to their chest
and stored it up, and expected to go on the morrow and have another
feast all to themselves. But when they lifted the lid–ah, you know
what happened to manna if they kept it till the morning! And our joys
will also breed worms and stink (that is the plain English of it), when
we keep them to ourselves! They are meant to be scattered abroad. In
this respect, "There is that which scatters and yet increases and there
is that which withholds more than is meet, but it tends to poverty."

Now, coming to our text, my talk will be on this wise. First, I will
try to show you what the happy Christian ought to do. And, secondly,
what downcast people ought to do.

I. first, then, WHAT THE HAPPY BELIEVER OUGHT TO DO. "When men are cast
down, then you shall say, there is lifting up."

Well, he ought to do this, first–he should notice those who are cast
down. We are such foolish creatures that sometimes, when the Lord
trusts us with a happy experience, we begin to grow mightily proud and
we look down upon His tried and afflicted people. Even among those who
know the Lord, if they have a very charming experience and enter into
high fellowship with God, there is a tendency to begin to think that
the poor doubting and fearing ones are very much to be censured and
blamed, or, at any rate, that they are to be ignored and left to
themselves. "Well," says someone, "really it quite depresses me to talk
with old Mrs. So-and-So, and I could not keep my joy if I were to go
and try to encourage that young man who is always so cast down." Ah, my
dear Friend, but if you begin to talk like that, it may not be long
before you will even envy that old lady you now despise–and wish you
were half as hopeful of salvation as that young man whom you just now
condemned! Remember that when the fat cattle begin to push with horn
and with shoulder, the Lord knows how to bring their fat down very
speedily, so that they can be trusted among the lean cattle without
being so domineering over them. The duty of a happy Christian is to
take notice of those who are not so joyous as he is, to seek them out,
to condescend to men of low estate. When you have abundant provision in
your house, it is your duty to send portions to those for whom nothing
is prepared. Mind that you attend to this matter lest your Lord should
put you on short commons, too, and make you feel a little more as you
ought to towards the afflicted.

The next thing a happy Christian ought to do when he has noticed and
found out the sad ones, he should go and talk to them. "When men are
cast down, then you shall say, there is lifting up." I often speak upon
this subject and, therefore, I cannot say anything new. But I do wish
to say over again that if all joyful Believers who have attained to
full assurance of faith would more often speak to troubled ones, they
might do a vast amount of good. I think, dear Friends, that you miss
many opportunities of serving the Lord through forgetfulness or through
diffidence. I notice that when converts do not begin to speak a little
for Christ very early in their Christian career, they become
tongue-tied–that is how we get so many dumb members of the Church who
seem as if they could not offer up a prayer to save their lives. And
what is worse, they cannot talk to their personal friends about the
things of God. It is a very great pity that it is so and I think I must
have an operation performed on some of you children who are dumb. It is
a very sad thing for the father of a family to have a number of
children who never speak. There is a sweetness about every child's
voice, is there not? There is a different tone, a different form of
speech with each child, and it would not content the head of the
household if he could say, "I can hear the older ones speak, but the
youngest is quite silent." We want them all to open their mouths, to
begin their speech with childlike prattle–then we shall be glad when
they can all speak plainly the language of the land in which they were
born.

Dear Christian people, try to be speaking Christians! Especially when
you come across any who are cast down. Remember what you, yourself, owe
to some loving word spoken by a Brother or Sister in years gone by.
Will you not repay it by speaking comfort to some of the sorrowing
ones? Many of you owe your hope of Heaven to the preaching of the Word.
It may be that you cannot preach and if you attempted it, you would be
very unwise. But do try, with such ability as you have, to tell at
least to one other in bondage that there is liberty to be had, that his
chain may be cut and that he may escape from the taskmaster's hand. Say
to him, "though you are cast down, there is lifting up." Look for the
sad and sorrowful and speak to them, and so be, each one of you,
according to your ability, a comforter by the gracious aid of the Holy
Spirit.

The particular thing I would have you say to them is this, remind them
of the promises of God. When any persons say to you, "Well, if I were
to meet with a desponding person, I would not know what to do," tell
them to commence by quoting a promise from the Scriptures. When that
eminent German critic, Bengel, the very father of true Biblical
criticism, lay sick, he was very sorely tried with doubts and fears and
he, therefore, sent for a young man from the College and said to him,
"Young brother, it is very dark with me I need you to say something
that will cheer me." But the youth answered, ,'My dear Sir, you are an
old man, you cannot expect me to say anything that can comfort you."
"But," said Bengel, "you are a student of divinity and you will have to
speak to men, like me, who are cast down, if you are to do any real
service in the ministry. I hope you will have something cheering to say
to me." "Then, Sir," the student replied, "I do not know that I can say
anything to you except that, 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.'"

"Ah!" exclaimed Bengel, "what better thing could you have said? You
have opened a window for me." When that great saint and preacher,
Augustine, lay dying–and I venture to say of Augustine that among all
who were born of women, there has hardly ever been a greater than
he–his mind was equal to any philosophy for its depth, its length and
its breadth. And as an instructor in theology he still remains, under
Christ, next to the Apostle Paul, the master-teacher of the
churches–yet, as he lay dying, he asked to have certain texts of
Scripture printed in large capitals. Which do you suppose he chose? You
may think that he selected some deep and mysterious passage about the
high doctrine which he so greatly loved, but he did nothing of the
kind. He chose those texts of Scripture which we commonly quote to
sinking sinners–such as these–"He that believes on the Son has
everlasting life." "Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved." And that great saint feasted his dying eyes on the texts
which we usually give to babes in Christ's faith, or those who are
seeking the Savior, for they suited him just then!

I want you who are very happy, you whom the Lord has made joyous and
glad so that you keep high festival from January to December, and all
your days seem like Heaven upon earth–and there are some of us who
have come to that blessed point–to be sure to tell others those rich
and gracious words of God which abound in the Scriptures! Have them at
your fingertips, so that you can find them in the Bible. Have them on
the end of your tongue, so that you can quote them without turning to
the Bible! Have them in the very center of your heart, so that they
shall cheer and warm you, and that the heat from them shall radiate to
warm others! It is a very bad stove that lets all the heat go out at
the top of the chimney–we need a grate that will throw the warmth into
the room. I pray that God may make us distributors of joy among those
who have little or none of it in themselves.

We ought, with those who are cast down, not only to tell them the
promises, but we should tell them our own experience. A recital of our
personal experience of God's goodness often helps a poor soul who is in
deep trial. Just draw a chair up and sit by the sick one's bedside, and
say, "I sought the Lord and He heard me." "This poor man cried, and the
Lord heard him." If you can tell something that happened to you when
you were in a condition similar to that of the person you are trying to
comfort, you have hit the nail on the head. Who can cheer the widow
like those of you who are widows? Who can comfort a bereaved mother
like one who has been, herself, bereaved? Who can speak with a man in a
great business trial like one who has been in much the same business
and has been a loser, too? You feel so glad, somehow, that there is
sympathy left in the world, that there is somebody whose face has been
furrowed and tear-stained like your own. So, tell your own experience,
dear Friends. If you haven't any, do not tell it–but if you have,
spread it abroad to the honor of your great Father's name that others
may be encouraged. Tell them, when they are cast down, that there
islifting up, for you were cast down and you were lifted up! Tell them
that God deals thus with His children, and brings them low on purpose
that they may see the power of His hand when He lifts them up!

If you do this, you may hope to be successful in cheering other people.
Our text says, "When men are cast down, then you shall say, there is
lifting up; and He shall save the humble person." And as the next verse
puts it, very often the good man will "deliver the island of the
innocent." When it is in danger, the godly man shall interpose and God
will hear his prayer, and God's suffering people shall be screened from
danger. To all of you who are very joyful and happy, I would say–do
not go to bed until you have found somebody who is sitting in darkness,
to whom you can say, "Friend, the Lord has, by His Grace, made my lamp
burn very brightly, so I have brought it to you, that your lamp may be
lighted, too." There is so much misery in this world that none of us
ought to add to it. Some, alas, do so by their nasty speeches, their
cross-grained tempers, their cutting, sarcastic observations and,
sometimes, by their slanderous judgments. Let us, on the contrary, seek
to increase happiness and joy wherever we can! Let us try to cheer all
the disconsolate and spread throughout this weary world some of that
savor of rest which the Lord smelled of old in Noah's sacrifice, and
which He makes us, also, to rejoice in as we take Christ's yoke upon us
and learn of Him, and so find rest unto our souls.

II. Now, secondly, I will pass on to tell you WHAT DOWNCAST PEOPLE
OUGHT TO DO.

What should they do when we speak to them in the spirit I have
described? Ought they not to respond to our desire to comfort them? You
know, dear Friends, you cannot comfort a man against his will. You may
lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. You may bring
forward the most cheering promises, but you cannot lay them home to the
heart that is weary if it refuses to receive them. What ought those who
are cast down to do in order to help us in the task of cheering them?

Well, first, they should remember that they are not infallible. The
most infallible people I have seen are those who are very much cast
down, for they know so much better than we do who try to comfort them.
"Yes, yes," they exclaim, "that is all very well for you to talk like
that, but if you were in our circumstances, it would be a very
different thing." Then you quote what you judge to be a suitable
promise, but they say, "that does not apply to our case," and they spy
out some little real or supposed difference by which they escape from
the comfort you are so anxious to administer to them. Some people are
wonderfully ingenious in inventing a great variety of processes of
self-torture. In the black days of the Spanish Inquisition, with their
thumbscrews, and their racks, and their Virgin's embrace, and other
diabolical things, they went a very long way in torturing their fellow
men, but even the Spanish Inquisition had nothing like as much
cleverness as the little inquisition that men and women set up in their
own souls with which to torture themselves!

About a month ago, you remember that my text was concerning those fools
who abhor all manner of meat [Sermon #1824, Volume 31–The History of
Sundry Fools] and there are still some persons of that kind left in the
world! This dish is too hot and that is too cold. This steak is too
tender and that other is too tough–they do not like this drink because
it is so sweet, others cry out because it is so sour–their food is
never cooked so as to suit them and, "their soul abhors all manner of
meat." My dear Friend, without being in the least sarcastic, but
speaking to you very tenderly, I should like to hint that you do not
know everything, after all. Though you may be a peer in the realm of
misery, yet all wisdom does not lie with peers, in whatever house they
may dwell! They sometimes make mistakes and, perhaps, you, also, are
making a mistake just now. Is it not just possible that some of us know
at least a little which you do not know, which might really help you in
your time of trouble? There is a saying that "lookers-on see more than
players," and I believe that, often, lookers-on can see the needs of a
man's case better than he can see them himself! If you were not much of
a seaman, and were out at sea, tossed up and down, and almost ready to
perish through the fury of the waves, I think you ought not to be above
taking warning from the signal of some old sailor who can tell you just
what you ought to do in the hour of your distress. Should you not be
willing to say, "That man is not so much troubled as I am. His brain is
clearer, his heart is calmer, I should not wonder but what he might
direct me rightly"?

The way for you sad souls to help us to comfort you is for us to see
that you are willing to receive the message that the comforter is
anxious to bring you. Then the battle is well begun and will soon end
in a victory. Yet, how often, when we try to cheer the downcast, we
meet with many who say, "We will never be convinced by that style of
argument. It may be very good reasoning for some people, but it would
never affect us." If it had so happened that the style of address had
been quite different. If the earnest pleader had spoken from quite
another quarter of the heavens of the Truth of God, such a hearer would
have said, "That is not the way to persuade me. There may be a good
deal for some minds in that style of talking, but to persons of my
disposition and of my peculiar culture, there is no force about it." I
have met with this gentleman numbers of times and I have heard him
confute himself again and again. He has said today what he denied
yesterday, and will repeat tomorrow! It has been his method to
constantly say and to unsay, only he must always hinder all who would
be the means of comforting him! I wish that any of us who may be in
that state of mind would try to get out of it because if there is a
good thing to be had, we ought not to need much persuasion to accept
it–and if this good thing should be peculiarly necessary to our
welfare and somebody who cannot have any motive but our good should
entreat us to think of it–I fancy that it would be a sensible thing on
our part to give a sober and discreet hearing to what he has to say.

Why, ordinarily, when we are unprejudiced, if we are driving along a
road and somebody holds up his hands to alarm us, we pull up to know
what he needs and if anybody were to shout at our door in the middle of
the night, we would be anxious to enquire what was the reason for the
disturbance. If there is a fire near us, we are usually ready enough to
be warned, or if there is any good news to be heard, we are usually
eager to be informed concerning it. And it is a strange thing that in
matters which relate to our higher nature, our immortal soul which is
to live forever in happiness or woe, we are so apt to refuse
instruction and turn a deaf ear to those who seek our good! I beg you,
dear Friends, to believe that in these matters you are not infallible,
and that some people know more than you do!

Next to that, you should be willing to believe what is reported to you
by credible persons. Suppose any of us who have been troubled as you
now are troubled, come to you and say, "Dear Friend, you will get out
of this horrible pit and miry clay; he that is cast down, as you now
are, will be lifted up again. You are feeling the burden of sin, but
there is mercy and pardon even for you. You say that you have no
strength, but there is One who is both able and willing to give you
strength. I went to the Lord when I was just as downcast as you now are
and when I rested wholly on Him, I found mercy, and if you will do the
same, you will find mercy, too. Do you not think that you ought to
believe my testimony? Do you imagine that I would deceive you? I know
your sorrow of heart makes you feel a little bitter, yet do not say, in
your haste, 'All men are liars,' for there are many who can join me in
testifying to the Lord's pardoning mercy. If it is a matter touching
your body, you will trust yourself with the doctor when you believe he
has some ability as a physician and, in like manner, ought you not,
when Christian people earnestly tell you the Truth about the Good
Physician, to say to yourself, 'They would not deceive me. They are
speaking in accordance with God's Word. I will believe them and I will
believe God, and I will not doubt that through faith in Christ I shall
have as happy an issue out of my soul-trouble as they have had'? If you
will not go as far as that, you must permit me to say that I think you
are acting very wrongly and that I really fear you desire to remain
somewhat in the dark. I pray you, believe first, that you are not
infallible and believe next, that which Christians testify to you.

Especially, dear sad Heart, believe the great Truth of my text– "When
men are cast down, there is lifting up." Let me ask why you are cast
down. "Oh," you cry, "I am so sad because of my sin." Then listen–"The
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." "All manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." "Come now, and let us
reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall
be as wool." Oh, that you would believe these testimonies of God
concerning the putting away of sin and not be cast down any longer!
"But," you say, "I have no righteousness and I cannot be accepted of
God without a righteousness. I thought I had one, once, but I see that
it is only a heap of filthy rags." Just so. I am glad you have
discovered that fact, but the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth and
worked out a perfect righteousness which He puts upon every believing
sinner! The righteousness of Christ will be set to your account and
imputed to you, if you believe in Him! And then, with His spotless
vesture on, you shall be, even in the sight of the Most High, holy as
the Holy One! You are cast down, but "there is lifting up."

"Yes," you say, "I know that the Lord says that there is lifting up,
but I am so weak I cannot do anything." Should you be cast down about
that? The Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, is able to give you
boundless strength. There is nothing that you will be called upon to do
but what you shall be enabled to do if you will but trust the Lord. He
will be your strength! He will help you to repent! He will help you to
believe! He will help you to be gracious, to persevere, to resist
temptation and to conquer sin if you will only trust Him! You are cast
down, but you have no need to be, for "there is lifting up." I do not
mind what it is about which you are cast down, dear Soul, if you will
but trust. All things are possible to him that believes. Many of us
have found it so ourselves, therefore we pray you to do as we have
done–cease from all confidence in yourself and rest wholly in
Christ–for so shall you certainly find eternal salvation.

Do not neglect to notice the second part of the text, for there is
something else to be believed there–that God will save the humble. The
margin has it, "He shall save him that has low eyes." The man who looks
low. Now, dear Friends, are you a man who looks low? Some men are
always looking up to the stars–their heads are swimming with conceit
of their own excellence. God will not save such people–at least not
while they continue to be so proud. He will bring you down, if you are
as high as that in your own estimation, for God will not give His Glory
unto another. But if you are a man who looks low, He will save you. You
have been looking to yourself, have you? You cannot see anything bright
there–all is dark. I am glad it is so, for you are the sort of man God
delights to save!

You have been looking down to the earth and you wondered you were not
in your grave, or in Hell. That is right– you are the sort of man on
whom God looks with approval! You thought that the very poorest of His
people were worth ten thousand times as much as you were. You have
envied the doorkeeper in the House of God. You are the sort of man God
will save! We have some people about who are so big, so good, so
intelligent, so wonderfully cultured and altogether such superior
persons, that they cannot be content in any ordinary position. But
these very superior persons, in their own opinion, are generally
despised by God and by men, too! But those who think nothing of
themselves, those who feel that they deserve only condemnation from God
and who say that if He will but save them, it will be all of Grace, the
gratitude for which they can never express–these are the people whom
the text tells us that God will save!

I like to hear sinners give themselves a bad character–I mean, not in
pretense, but in real earnest. There was a Brother came to me, the
other night, in deep distress of soul. I let him tell me all his case.
By what he said, he seemed to have been a terrible sinner, and when he
had gone through the long black list, I said, as I looked at him, "You
are the very man Jesus Christ came to save." And then I began to pick
out the texts of Scripture that suited his case. I know he thought
Jesus Christ came to save good people, but nowhere in the Bible is
there anything of that kind, though we are told that, "Christ died for
the ungodly." I got my poor sinful friend to see that Christ came to
take the place of the guilty and that great Truth of Substitution laid
hold upon him! I would that you might be led to the same point, and to
say, "I am a sinner and I trust the sinners' Savior." If you are cast
down on account of your sin, "there is lifting up." God will save the
humble, the man or woman of low eyes. If you are as nothing in your own
sight, God will save you! If you are less than nothing and yet trust
Christ, He will be your All in All. I would that every downcast soul in
the world would simply believe the promise of God and rest on it,
trusting in Jesus and in Jesus only!

I have just two observations to make and then I have done my sermon.
First, what a very little difference there is, after all, between those
who are up and those who are down! You, my Brother, are full of joy and
you begin to comfort a man who has no joy at all. He tells you what a
sinner he is and if you feel as you ought, you say to yourself, "I was
once just the same as this man now is, only perhaps he feels his sin
more than I did." And when you comfort and direct him, so that he says,
"My faith would touch the hem of Christ's garment," I know it brings
the tears into your eyes and you say, "I will do the same. It may be
that my past faith has been all a mistake, so I will begin again." I
like to meet with people who are always beginning, just resting in
Christ after 30 years' experience, as they did at the first, and
saying, "I am nothing, but Christ is everything. I am more and more
decreasing, that He may more and more increase and fill the full circle
of my being to its utmost bound."

Then, do you not think it would be a good thing if those who are very
happy and those who are very miserable, would alike give up walking by
their feelings and would, both of them, live by faith? If there were
two women in Sarepta, and one of them had a bushel of meal and a great
keg of oil–and the other had only a little oil in a cruse and a
handful of meal in the barrel–if they both lived by faith, it would
not make any difference whether they had much or little meal and oil.
Of the two, I should think that the one who had the big barrel would
begin to see the meal diminish–and she might fret–while the woman who
had so little would never see her handful diminish, so she would not
fret, for she lived by a miracle of faith! And I should think that the
rich woman had better get down to be as poor as the other woman and
live in the best possible way–by faith in God! I find that I cannot
get on when I live by my feelings. They are like a barometer, sometimes
they point to, "fair," sometimes to, "much rain." There is very little
in our feelings that is to be depended upon! The air may have something
to do with them, or they may be affected by what we wear, or what we
eat, or with the last person who spoke to us–the most unreliable
things in the world are our own feelings! Let us, each one, say, "Lord,
I will believe You though I feel heavy and dull. Lord, I will still
believe You, though I am now light and joyful. Lord, my hope is in Your
Son when I cannot see any evidence of Grace in my soul–and my trust is
in your Son alone when all my evidences are bright and clear."

Our poor feelings may depend on which way the wind is blowing! When a
man goes to France on business three times a week, he is not very
particular to ask what sort of passage he will be likely to have. It is
those who play at traveling that need to have the water as smooth as
glass! So, children of God who do real business with their Heavenly
Father come to be almost indifferent whether they are very glad or very
sad, for, after all, the safety of the man who crosses the sea does not
depend upon his feelings, but on the boat in which he is sailing! So,
our safety lies in the stability of the Christ to whom we have
committed ourselves–not in our feelings which are as variable as the
vapors that fill the sky. "Trust you in the Lord forever, for in the
Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Put down your own feelings and
lift up the Cross of Christ! Cling to Him and say, with Job, "Though He
slay me, yet will I trust in Him." So shall it be well with you, both
now and forever. The Lord bless you all, for Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB23.

We shall read, this evening, in the Book of Job. May the good Spirit
instruct us during our reading! Here we shall see Job in a very
melancholy plight, grievously distressed in mind and yet, for all that,
holding fast to his God. We do not want any of you to get into this
gloomy condition, but if you are in such a state as that, or if you
ever should be, may you behave as well as Job did! It needs a deal of
Divine Grace to travel all right in the dark, to keep in the good way
when you cannot see it, to cling to God when you cannot even feel that
He is near you. But the Lord can give Grace even for such an emergency
as that.

Verses 1, 2. Then Job answered and said, Even today is my complaint
bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Job admitted that he
groaned, but he claimed that he had good reason for doing so–that,
indeed, the source of his grief was greater than the streams of his
grief–so that he could not, even with his groans and tears, express
half the anguish that he felt.

3, 4. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to
His seat! I would order my cause before Him and fill my mouth with
arguments. Good men are washed towards God even by the rough waves of
their grief. And when their sorrows are deepest, their highest desire
is not to escape from them, but to get at their God. "Oh that I knew
where I might find Him!" Job wanted to spread out his whole case before
the Lord, to argue it with Him, to present his petitions to the Most
High and to find out from God why He was contending with him. It is all
right with you, Brothers and Sisters, if your face is towards your God
in rough weather. It is all wrong with you, Brothers and Sisters, if
the weather is very calm and your face is turned away from your God.

5. I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what
He would say unto me. I am not sure that Job would know and understand
all that God said. The Lord says a great deal, even to men like Job,
that they do not easily understand, and it is not for us to require
that God should explain everything to us. He gives not account of any
of His matters. "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why
have you made me thus?" Our wisdom will be to plead with God our suit
for pardon and for mercy, and to ask Him to at least make us understand
the way of salvation, that we may run in it and be at peace with Him.

6. Will He plead against me with His great power! ' 'If I were to go to
God and urge my suit with Him, would He crush me with the might of His
majesty? Would He overwhelm me with His Omnipotence?"

6. No, but He would put strength in me. Such was Job's faith in God,
that he was sure He would rather help him than hinder him–"He would
put strength in me."

7. 8. There the righteous might dispute with Him; so should I be
delivered forever from my Judge. Behold, I go forward, but He is not
there. "I look to the future, I try to forecast the days that are yet
to come, but I cannot see God there."

8. And backward, but I cannot perceive Him.' 'I remembered the days of
old. I turned over the pages of my diary, but I could not find Him
there." There are cases in which one who is a true child of God cannot,
for a while, find his Father. Do not condemn yourself because you are
in the dark! On the contrary, remember then that there are many who
fear the Lord, yet who walk in darkness and have no Light. Let all such
trust in the name of the Lord and stay themselves upon their God–and
in due season the Light of God will come to them.

9. On the left hand, where He does work, but I cannot behold Him: He
hides Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. If this is the
case with you, be thankful that you want to see your God. Let your very
desires after Him, your anxiety because you miss Him and the sorrow of
your spirit when you are, apparently, deserted by Him, encourage you to
believe that you are one of His children! Another woman's child will
not cry after you, dear mother–it is your own child that cries after
you–and if you were not a child of God, you would not long and cry for
the joy of His Presence. If you were not His child, that Presence would
be no delight to you, it would be your dread.

10. But He knows the way that I take. Oh, what a mercy that is! "I
cannot see Him, but He can see me. My grief has blinded my eyes with
floods of tears, but nothing blinds His eyes. Like as a father pities
his children, so does He pity me and regards me with the full
observation of His gigantic mind–'He knows the way that I take.'"

10. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. It is grand to be
able to say that while you are in the fire! It is very easy to say it
about another man who is in the furnace, but when you are in there,
yourself, then t o say, "I shall come forth as gold," is the sublimity
of faith! It is a very simple matter to say, "If I were again put into
the fire, I know I should come forth as gold." But it is when the
burning heat is meltingyou, when you seem to be shriveled up in the
crucible and so little of you is left–then is the time to say, "When
the Lord has finished His work upon me, when He has thoroughly assayed
me, I shall come forth as gold."

11. My foot has held His steps, His way have I kept, and not declined.
You cannot talk like that in the time of trouble if you have not led a
sincere, upright and gracious life. Those battles into which men come
in the Valley of Humiliation are often brought about by their tripping
when they are going down the hill. Our sins find us out at length, but
if God enables us to walk uprightly, then we feel very confident–not
in our own uprightness, but in God's love and Grace.

12. 13. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips. I
have esteemed the Words of His mouth more than my necessary food. But
He is in one mind and who can turn Him!fob looks at His grief and says
concerning it, "It is according to God's mind that I should have this
grief, and who can turn Him?" There may be times when God wills that
His servant should be in trouble. And when God lets down the iron bar,
who can lift it up? When He shuts up a soul in Doubting Castle, how
shall it escape until He wills its deliverance?

13-15. And what His soul desires, even that He does, for He performs
the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with Him.
Therefore am I troubled at His Presence, when I consider if am afraid
of Him. Yet he longed for Him. So, sometimes, we long for the Presence
of God, yet that Presence strikes us with a solemn awe whenever we are
favored with it. We ask to see our Lord, yet when we do see Him, we
have to say, with John, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead."
Or perhaps we are like Peter who, when the Lord Jesus was in his boat,
fell down before Him and cried, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
O Lord." The majesty of Christ's pure Presence was too much for poor
imperfect Peter–and so it is for us.

16, 17. For God makes my head soft, and the Almighty troubles me
because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither has He covered
the darkness from my face. Now you see where you might be if you had
Job's experience. If you are not there, be very grateful. And if you
are there, say, "There is a better man than I am who has been this way
before me. I can see his footprints on the sands of time and I am
encouraged by his example to trust my Lord in the darkest hour." You
are not the only man or woman who has been in the coal cellar–there
have been better than you in the dark places of the earth before now!
Therefore, still have hope and be confident in God that in His own good
time He will deliver you.